Mary Ann Iyer

25 posts

Anxiety

Conformance

Anxiety: lurking, deep, swirling, gripping, pervasive. Hard to get at. Hard to eliminate. Seems to be ever-present. So much in the background we hardly can say it’s a “thing” separate from us.

And that, of course, is its secret to lingering – far beyond its welcome.

As we deepen in our devotion to the Inner state, many notice a tidepool of anxiety lurking deep within. Far beneath the surface of self assurance and busyness is this place where we are scurrying around trying to make sure we never sink in too deep. It’s just too scary and uncomfortable there.

This anxiety has many faces, names and nuances. But it exists for all of us. Many would deny this. The busyness of their lives keeps them occupied enough that they haven’t really noticed it, yet.

But nearly everyone I know who has begun the Inner Journey stumbles into this pit sooner or later.

It is so intensely uncomfortable it feels like we’d do ANY thing to get out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

What I notice is that – right where we feel anxiety welling up — this is the place to go. To open. To be curious. Willing to see our own selves there.
It is good.

All of us – every single one of us – learned in some way in our lives that we are not completely OK just as we are. In some way – in some small or big way – we had to change to fit in, to meet our parents’ expectations or needs or deficiencies. We had to fit in to our culture or – gads – we would be a “misfit”. That statement, unto itself is terrifying. If we don’t fit in to society it spells not surviving. By whatever primitive means our minds operate around this principle, it speaks to the most basic of Garden of Eden scenarios. Being banned. Excommunicated. Removed from the garden of our most basic sustenance. Forever.

Very, very terrifying.

Underlying all this programming is a deep societal fear that IT (society) won’t survive if individuals are allowed to be different. And – this is more than fear. It is a recognition of a truth. Society, as it is, WON’T survive if individuals learn they don’t have to meld and mold themselves to the norm of the general trend.

The basic fear of all this devolves from the most basic lack of trust. A lack of trust in an inherent sense of order that might reveal itself and evolve if we each were allowed to follow the bliss of our hearts – rather than strive and struggle to conform to the norms defined for us by the society that already exists. Bound by traditions, religions, parents and corporations. It reflects a belief that somehow we are, at our base, not OK. Not OK. We have to be defined by some external standard to bring ourselves up to an idea of acceptability. Unlike forests, animals, stars and all other acts of nature – we are somehow deformed at birth and base. We don’t trust the basic goodness of life as it moves through US. Our minds believe we have to DO something – something different – in order to be “allowed” to live. To survive.

Forget the “lilies of the field” malarkey. We humans are different. We need cars and cell phones and designer jeans.

Really?

Stop here. Pause and take the time – right now – to just open in to the question: “What, in me, says ’No way!’ to the idea that I am perfectly, wonderfully fine – right now – just as I am?”

The answer to this question – and I encourage you to ask it often – will deliver you from such deep anxiety. It is worth the pause.

Power Over

Ego

This is an excerpt from a book I am currently writing:

Although this book focuses on the differences women and men experience in training our egos along gender lines, I want to make clear that the biggest factor needing attention is the mental structure behind this training. There are many clear biological differences between males and females. Only women bear children. Men are usually physically stronger. Our capabilities are inherently skewed differently.

This variability is not a problem, in and of itself. The challenge that faces us as a species and as individuals lies in the framework by which we define worth. For quite some time, in most cultures and religions, there are massive inequalities in what we define as having value that tend to fall along gender lines. In most cultures and nearly all religions, women are framed as objects owned by men – somewhat like cattle or houses. But this is representative of a deeper value system going on. There is what could be called a “Power-over” mentality that shows up not just in gender pools. Corporations are seen as entities with “rights” equal to or greater than the individual humans who populate and sustain them. Financial “entities” are granted assistance that human individuals are denied. Governments claim the right to own their citizens, and control them accordingly. Individuals (usually men) who have money are seen as not only more privileged, but superior in every way to those who have less.

This “power-over” mentality leads to oppression and suppression of what could be considered the feminine, if we define feminine as being the values of cooperation, nurturance and respect for all life. That which is soft, yielding and which loves. This is not just a gender-based value-system, but it is true that women have been recognized to harbor these values at a deeper level simply due to our inherent gender differences, and it is true that women have been debased as a gender along these lines. Being soft or yielding is construed as being weak. Emotions are relegated to an inferior role as less than mental acuity. An authentic expression of grief or sadness is discounted as a “pity party”. When someone cries, it may be that they are “just feeling sorry for themselves”. It may also be that they are giving vent to genuine grief, needing expression.

These sorts of judgments are made by both men and women, but decry the full range of our existence and capabilities. Emotional intelligence has gone missing for the sake of intellectual. IQ is defined as the basis for all intelligence, and only that which is logical is deemed of any worth. An intuitive, heart-centric way of life is considered frilly at best; stupid by some.

What needs to change is for the sake of both men and women. This is not about replacing men with women in positions of power. It is about changing the entire power matrix to disallow power-over oppression – under any condition or by any excuse. No living entity can be seen as “less-than” in the matrix of life for us to have the profound shift we need in our consciousness to heal what ails us as a species at this time.

 

MindBody Medicine

MindBody Medicine

Mindbody Medicine – notes from a recent talk by Dr. Iyer

I. Mindbody Medicine: What is it?
II. How does this relate to me in my life?
III. What are some useful Mindbody tools I can use to be healthier and happier?

MindBody Medicine:

If you’ve ever felt the stress of running late to an appointment, you’ve experienced the visceral impact of the mindbody connection. There are several layers in which our thoughts influence our wellbeing. We estimate, right now, that roughly 80% of what ails us, particularly in this culture, has to do with lifestyle choices. Hans Selye made the expression, “fight-or-flight response” famous in the ‘70s. There is little doubt any more that perceived stress has an influence on the body. We each have our own unique way of reacting when we feel anxious. Science continues to catch up to our common wisdom: the way we think, what we believe, and our fears and anxieties affect our wellbeing. And they affect it through what are now well documented chemical pathways: hormones, stress reactions, and our immune system. Our sense of wellbeing and the entire internal chemical milieu of our bodies are modulated by our response to perceived stress.

How does this relate to me in my life?

There are practical ways to bring the wisdom of Mindbody connections in to our daily lives. Noticing when and where you seem most often to experience stress in your life is an important first step. Linking situations with your physical response and experience gives you clues as to internal messages you may be telling yourself. For instance, in the above example of running late to an appointment, you can easily see that being late is, in and of itself, just a neutral event. If, however you are nervous about impressing the person with whom you are meeting, or you have a lot riding on this particular meeting, you will have all sorts of related messages running in your mind about the event. “If I’m late I might lose my assignment – or job – or, or –“). It is the response to our messages about an event that causes us to tense up in fear, anxiety or anger.

The second major thing to become aware of is what your actual body response is to these perceived threats. For some, tension always goes to the shoulders. For others, a migraine may develop. And so on. Learning to link events with what you are telling yourself with what your body does in response is the beginning key to breaking the cycle of unnecessary pain in your life.

Mind-Body Healing:

The final step in breaking the cycle of event-perception-messages-response is to choose a point in this dynamic and begin to undo it. Really, any point can work. We’ll briefly discuss each.

Event: if a situation is chronically stressful to you – can you change it? Be very honest here. We are seldom as stuck in a situation as we think we are. Make the changes you can.
Perception: is there any way that you are seeing only part of the picture? Are you sure your boss hates you? Is it possible his stress is making him temporarily a beast? Explore the edges of what might be different than what you think.
Messages: this is often the richest place to look. A good starting point to start to unearth this area is to diagram a sentence: If this happens, then this will happen, then this, then this – until you get to the conclusion that you are finding so odious. Then go back to that sentence and ask diligently at each step: “Do I actually, for sure, know this is true? Is it absolutely guaranteed? Is there a possible different way it could or might go? Do I have anything to do with it? Can I change any part of this formula?” Often the foregone conclusions we have in this regard reflect a past traumatic or unpleasant event that happened to us that our subconscious then records as the inevitable conclusion to anything that looks or feels similar. Spend some time at this stage. It is well worth the effort to free up a lot of energy in your life that may be bound up in false conclusions, and avoidance.
Response: another rich area. When we learn to disassociate an event or perception from a customary response, we have gained enormous freedom in our lives. Then and only then can we find true choice in HOW we respond to any given stimulus. That choice is there and it is ours, and when we awaken to the sequence in its entirety, we gain the freedom that Viktor Frankl described in his description of living in the Nazi Concentration camp – that no matter what constraints or punishment were meted out to him, he always remembered that he retained the choice in his reaction.

We each have a space of calm from which we can act, which provides a pervasive healing quality to our thoughts. Decisions made from within this framework tend to be healthier and more in balance. Mind-body integration therapy helps us remember this space of peace so we operate with awareness in our daily lives.